


So Runs The World Away

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Grief/Mourning, Hamlet - Freeform, M/M, References to Hamlet, Remus mourns, Sirius Black Dies, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23830621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sirius Black has just died. Remus returns to Grimmauld place, picks up his copy of Hamlet, and grieves.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 15





	So Runs The World Away

Remus didn’t sleep for three days following the battle at the ministry. As soon as he could get away, he went to Grimmauld Place and stared at the bed he and Sirius had shared for the past year. Unable to bring himself to lie down in it, he slipped through the still open window and sat on the roof. His hands shook as he lit a cigarette.

Alone again. The last one standing.  _ Shit.  _

He spent three days in the bedroom, occasionally summoning food from downstairs, praying Kreacher wouldn’t hear him. He thought tears would come, but he didn’t cry.  _ Monster,  _ came the voice in his head.  _ Unable to grieve the only person you really loved.  _

On the second day, an owl came from Dumbledore urging him to relocate as quickly as possible. Remus burned the parchment and lay on the floor.

On the third day, Remus found himself sitting in front of the small bookshelf they had assembled. There were a dozen or so books Remus always kept near him, and they sat next to Sirius’s old textbooks and the muggle detective novels he loved. Remus’s eyes shuttered and stopped on a worn spine, and he pulled out the musty paperback and flipped through it.

Remus slowly flipped to the first page, his stomach sinking as he read what he knew would be there.  _ Thank you for putting up with me, my dear dear Horatio. --Hamlet _

Sirius had inscribed that when they were nineteen, in their new flat, but the book was older. Remus shuddered as he remembered receiving it. He had never stayed in the hospital wing as long as he did after the Prank, and he had never been so devastated, either. Pomfrey, worry written on her face, pressed the book into his hands on his third day. “At least have something to read, love.” He had devoured it. Somehow,  _ Hamlet  _ captured every disparate feeling Remus had and didn’t have words for. The next day, when she finally made him leave, he tried to give it back to her but she just smiled. “It’s yours.”

Since then,  _ Hamlet  _ had stayed with Remus through every move and every moment. When he had finally managed to get Sirius to read it, Sirius read it three times in four days. “You didn’t tell me how fucked up it is, Moony, I would’ve read it much sooner.” Sirius had immediately identified with Hamlet’s antic disposition and acute depression, the mood swings that defined both of their characters. “I suppose that makes me Horatio?” Remus asked him, all arch amusement, and Sirius immediately latched on to the idea.

Now, Remus flipped to the end of the play and read Hamlet’s dying words.  _ “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.”  _ As though he were someone else, Remus heard the first sob escape his lips. After he began, he couldn’t help himself and finally, finally, Remus wept for Sirius. 

He didn’t know how long he sat there crying. When he felt wrung out, he stood and stretched and clutched the book to his chest. He wiped his eyes and rummaged around for a pen and parchment and wrote. 

_ Dear Harry, _

_ I know of no words to heal the hurt we feel, and you know I will not offer you false comforts. This is loss too great for speech. But since I can offer no words of my own, I send you a few of Shakespeare’s. I received this book when I needed it most, when I was just about your age. It taught me about grief and guilt. Grief is ugly, absurd, nonsensical, in much the same way as life. But if we must live, we must grieve. I hope this book helps you figure out how. _

_ Know that he loved you. Know that I do, too. _

_ \--Remus _

Remus shut his eyes. It was time to leave Grimmauld Place. 


End file.
